It seems to me that we live in a society in which technology is continuously presented as wonderful. We were less exposed to the negative aspects of technology which were inevitably there. One of my interests is to provide that kind of balance to these notions that cell phones and faxes are all wonderful and great. Isn't it fabulous that we all have computers? Well, yes and no is my response.

I was particularly interested in that, in working on Jurassic Park that aspect of what are the negative parts. Because in talking with the people who were doing this kind of research what I was hearing was that the most responsible of them were deciding not to proceed down certain lines of inquiry which is really a new phase in science. Traditionally in science what the scientists themselves have said is: "I might as well do it, because if I don't, someone else will. It is going to happen inevitably." I think there's recognition now, that it's no so inevitable and it's quite conceivable that if I don't do this research neither will anyone else. It's simply too dangerous.

There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing
Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a-blowing?
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of hell a-glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?
Yes, the danger must be growing
'Cause the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing!

Many of us saw religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where's the harm? September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let's now stop being so damned respectful!

Jean: Yes, but not to live. Senator, mutants who've come forward and revealed themselves publicly have been met with fear, hostility, even violence. It is because of that hostility that I am urging the Senate to vote against mutant registration. To force mutants to expose themselves...

Senator Kelly: Expose themselves? What do mutants have to hide that makes them so afraid to identify themselves?

Jean: I didn't say they were hiding.

Senator Kelly: Let me show you what is being hidden. I have here a list of names of identified mutants living right here in the United States.

Jean: Senator Kelly...

Senator Kelly: A girl in Illinois who walks through walls. What's to stop her from walking into a bank vault? Or into the White House? Or into their houses? And there are even rumors of mutants so powerful that they can enter our minds and control our thoughts, taking away our God-given free will. The American people deserve the right to decide whether they want their children to be in school with mutants. To be taught by mutants. Ladies and gentlemen, the truth is that mutants are very real. And they are among us. We must know who they are, and, above all, we must know what they can do.

Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again. They are still only playing with religion. Goodness is either the great safety or the great danger — according to the way you react to it.

Where, O king, destined to perish, are you directing your unavailing flight? Alas, lost one, you know not whom you flee; you are running upon enemies, whilst you flee from your foe. You fall upon the rock Scylla desiring to avoid the whirlpool Charybdis.

Phillippe Gaultier de Lille ("D. Chatillon"). Alexandriad, Book V. 298. Found in the Menagiana. Ed. by Bertrand de la Monnoie. (1715). Source said to be Quintus Curtius. See Andrews—Antient and Modern Anecdotes, p. 307. (Ed. 1790). (See also Homer—Odyssey, Book XII, line 85. Merchant of Venice, III. 5).

For all on a razor's edge it stands.

Homer, The Iliad, Book X, line 173. Same use in Herodotus, VI. 11. Theocritus—Idyl, XXII. 6. Theogenes. 557.

'Twas a dangerous cliff, as they freely confessed,
Though to walk near its crest was so pleasant,
But over its terrible edge there had slipped
A Duke and full many a peasant,
So the people said something would have to be done,
But their projects did not at all tally.
Some said: "Put a fence round the edge of the cliff."
Some: "An ambulance down in the valley."

Joseph Maunes, Fince or Ambulance. Appeared in the Virginia Health Bulletin with title Prevention and Cure.

Nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for … the destruction that wasteth at noonday.